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With IBM concentrating on middleware and open to integrating all kinds of applications, and Microsoft focusing on its own suite, where does Sun stand? Perhaps surprising, Sun's approach is more like Microsoft's than IBM's; it's developing application suites for servers and clients.

This is a big move for Sun, prompted by businesses in recent years moving toward multiple x86-based clusters running Linux and away from proprietary Unix implementations running on Sun SPARC hardware. Sun's weapon in its plan to take market share is software. Jonathan Schwartz, head of Sun's software group, recently described an ambitious plan to rewrite the rules of the software game.

Schwartz points out that J2EEthe enterprise version of Sun's Java programming languageis a standard in enterprise app servers. And Sun's mobile J2ME will be on more than 300 million cell phones by the end of this year. He also notes that software for Java-based smart cards is growing rapidly and that most big PC makers will ship Sun's Java with their machines.

Sun's plan is to offer customers a server-side infrastructure that is much simpler and cheaper to run than Windows. Its Orion middleware stack might include J2EE, a directory, an application server, an identity server, a Web server, a portal server, e-mail, calendaring, and a file system. All this will run either Sun's Solaris or another OS (maybe Linux) on either x86-based systems or Sun SPARC hardware. Sun plans to release quarterly updates for everything to make life easier for IT departments.

Today most organizations buy these products separately and spend most of their IT budgets on integrating and maintaining them. Sun hopes to simplify this by bundling everything for $100 to $200 per employee per yearabout one-fifth of what Microsoft charges, says Schwartz.

On the client side, Sun is promoting its Mad Hatter environment, which includes Java, the GNOME environment, the Ximian Evolution e-mail suite, and Sun's Star Office suite running on Solaris or Linux. This plan would cost $50 to $100 per user per year.

From Sun's perspective, only three OS providers matter: Microsoft (Windows), Red Hat (Linux), and Sun (Solaris and Linux). And that's where the SCO lawsuit against Linux users and IBM comes into play. Sun will indemnify its users against any liability from running its version of Linux, Schwartz says, though no other company does so.

Sun is hoping that the confusion about the legal status of Linux will elevate Sun as the de facto Linux provider and that its lower pricing will make Linux a better alternative to Windows. But this plan presupposes that customers will move to an all-Sun environment. That's a serious challengeone that will either win big or fail big for Sun.

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